New Wealth

“Let us give you a plot of land down by the river. It’s yours.” said the visionary young man with the big grin was translating his father’s words, as swung his arm in the direction of the tropical mountains. In his other arm he held his two year old son, who was being raised not by him and his wife, but by his extended family.

It was April 2010 and I was into my second month in Africa on a transformational safari I’d organized to pay for my entire trip. The young man was someone I’d met online four years earlier. I’d helped him out, and now he was offering me my place in paradise.

For those who’ve dreamed of a simple life in a tropical paradise with an abundance of food, water, stunningly beautiful nature and all the time in the world—this was it. And it was being given to me—for free—if I wanted it.

I’d just spent three months in Australia, where I’d been invited to give an iStand to support a woman facing divorce, her family and community. She’d flown me and my closest friends in and we’d lived in another kind of paradise—multi-million dollar homes, one on the cliffs above the beach, another in the tropical hills with where wallabies roamed free, and another on one of the most famous surfing beaches in the world.

I was experiencing a new kind of wealth in my life, where amazingly beautiful things were happening with ease, and big adventure was always around the corner, but I hadn’t fully bought into it.

It wasn’t until I lost a lot of money a few months later in a business deal that I began to fundamentally question many of the sacred cows of American Culture. It was time to let my old way of life fade away and die, so that something fresh and new could arise in its place.

So, I sold off some of my belongings to pay debts I’d incurred over the summer, and I left for Europe with $200 dollars to my name. I carried $200 and a lot of grief and shame about failing with some big projects. It may sound like a desperate situation, but it was just the opening I needed to fully embrace this new path of new wealth that I’d begun to taste since my first trip to Africa four years earlier, a trip I also made with virtually no money.

It was October 2010. I would spend a month in the Europe and another month in the Middle East before ending up in Brasil in December just in time to celebrate my 40th birthday—and again with only $200 to my name. But I was wealthy in other ways, and my big adventure into what I am calling New Wealth only expanded. (It is here in South America where I’ve been since then, and where I am writing you from now in July, 2011.)

The life of abundance, ease, adventure and deep connection to people and nature that I was experiencing has to have a name. “People have to know about it,” I thought. It was certainly a new path for me, a new world that opened up to me only as I followed new protocols. I haven’t got it all figured out yet, but I’m not going to wait until I do to share it, because I know that what I’ve already learned can inspire others to explore this path and we can learn together! (Yes, I’d love to meet YOU somewhere around the world. Let’s connect!)

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Michael Ivan Skye, founder of VisionForce and a body of transformational work including iStand and the Honor Window, is experimenting with new ways of living life and offering his work in different cultures.